Quiltivate

It's Like "Choose Your Own Adventure" with Quilt Blocks

I love seeing the creative quilts designed using the Quiltivate Quilt Builder. Yesterday, someone played around quite a bit with the Blocks and Stars quilt block and they ended up creating three extremely different-looking quilts with the exact same block! Check 'em out:

#1:

#2:

#3:

   

This is exactly why I wanted the Quiltivate blocks to be shown "empty" - so you wouldn't feel obligated to fill it in with the "traditional" way each block is designed. Why be so limited, when the possibilities are endless? 

Design your own Blocks and Stars quilt now, or pick another block. It's fun, free, easier and less frustrating than using graph paper and colored pencils to design your quilt. And for only $9, you get a beautiful quilt plan that includes detailed fabric calculations. What are you waiting for?

Quilting with Contrast

Dana from The Old Red Barn Co. blog recently posted some pictures of a pinwheel quilt she made where some blocks had good contrast and others ... not so much. Definitely check out the full blog post, but here is the image with the blocks showing good contrast:

 

And here she points out the block that doesn't have such great contrast:

 

How do you do with creating contrast in your quilt tops? My quilt tops would be admittedly more interesting if I were to use colors and patterns sometimes. I mean, I LOVE the quilt I'm hand-quilting now, but it's a little tricky to create eye-catching contrast with three shades of muslin. I do tend to notice quilts made with great contrast more than those in which the colors and patterns blend together, though. What do you think?

De-Linting Your Sewing Machine

Wow, check out how gross my sewing machine is! Well, this is not actually a picture of mine, but mine probably looks pretty similar to this ... except mine is an 8-year-old $49 Singer from Wal-Mart and this is a luxurious, gorgeous, wonderful Bernina, which I can't afford. But, I dream of having a Bernina and I was disappointed to discover that not even Berninas clean themselves - bummer! But, regardless of what make the sewing machine is, I hear it'll run way more smoothly if it's clean. 

Here's a very helpful post from the Bernina Blog on how to clean your sewing machine. In addition to learning how to clean my machine, I also learned some sewing machine part terminology that I didn't know before. So, thanks, Bernina! 

[Thanks also to @VictorianaQuilt for the original link on Twitter!]

More Half-Square Triangle Help

Check out Rachel's gorgeous and helpful half-squre triangle tutorial on her always-excellent blog, p.s. i quilt. Thanks, Rachel!